January was a productive month! Hooray! Each year I try to get the behind the scenes stuff done that I don't necessarily enjoy doing but must be done. Kind of like cleaning the toilets first thing in the morning so you can enjoy the rest of your day with the dirty work out of the way. Does anyone else do that or just me?
Things I accomplished in January:
Updated my blog, joined IBPA, bought Publisher Rocket, explored a lot of publishing resources, watched several publishing related webinars, created new book display racks and book labels, reorganized all my event gear, and developed new promotional items
On my existing books: updated book descriptions and online formatting of them, tweaked cover artwork on existing books, updated book content on all platforms to the most up to date versions, changed Amazon keywords for e-books and print books, took inventory and ordered books for upcoming shows and sat down and updated my schedule with everything I currently have booked/confirmed. (You can find that over to the right -->)
Awards: Both Not Another Bard's Tale and Spindelkin were announced as "Recommended Reads" by the 2023 Author Shout Reader Ready Awards.
And on a new book note: Everyone Dies will be released in just a few days! Which means I've been busy creating the cover, doing the formatting and drawing the interior illustrations. I also planned out the artwork for Kay-Kay and sent the story through my critique group.
Unplanned: after another editing pass on a yet untitled project I'd wrapped up... surprise it's another Narvan Novel...I decided to move forward with publishing it. I also gave it a title: Tears of the Tyrant. If all goes well with editing, that will be out later this year.
2023 is off to a good start!
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If you're not familiar with |
Covers are one of my favorite parts of putting a book together. So yes, you can gather that I put my own covers together. Trust is the only cover that was done by the small press that originally published the first books of the Narvan series.
Most of my covers are composites of artwork that I purchase from art sources, alter, and put together. Spindelkin is my own original art.
I'm fortunate that I do design work as part of my day job so I have the programs and resources readily available.
When I was with a small press, I did have input on the cover art, but with my first two books - A Broken Race and Trust, I really didn't have anything in particular in mind other than I wanted Trust to have a green tone. That left a lot of leeway to come up with something. Now that I've been doing this on my own for a while, coming up with ideas for cover art is much easier and integrated into my whole writing process.
